Deny Thy Father
by Laryna6
Summary: The lives and times of Bakhura. In Ancient Egypt and modernday. Atemu centered. Slight BxYY and YxY.
1. Deny

Disclaimer: If I owned Yu-gi-oh, Ba-khu-ra would have gotten to fight Zork, not be controlled by him.

Note: My info on what happened in Egypt is based on a few scanlations, looking at the manga in Chinese without being able to read it, and j-anime. If I am wrong, please tell me, but don't flame. I'm doing the best I can. And making some stuff up because I think it's better that way.

This is a series of monologues from Ba-khu-ra/Bakura's perspective.

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I didn't know what was going on. Just… the spells set up around the village to tell us if the Pharaoh's forces were doing a surprise raid so we could get the hell out of town and hide in the caves had gone off. This wasn't new, I'd been carried into hiding before, and last time had helped carry the gold. Everyone sort of viewed it as a joke. Once they had got cocky and not sent enough people and I watched them get killed from the roof.

My mom had yelled about throwing spears, and my dad had whipped me. But it was cool!

This time, though, my parents were just standing there, looking at each other. My father was the best Shadow Mage in the village. He got called in to disable magical tomb traps, and lived off a percentage of what they got mostly, though he had a few tombs that he robbed by himself.

He was teaching me how. I liked summoning monsters, they were fun. There was a jackal with wasp wings that would let me ride it.

There was one tomb where my father had repaired the traps in order to train me. Pits, shooting stakes, moving statues, boulders to balance on, giant swinging axes… it was to me what an amusement park is to these fools nowadays. My dad kept a watchful eye on me.

My uncle trained pickpockets, and let them live with him when they got too known and needed to go to another city. My father had me learn from them, and my aunt, who made clothes with many pockets to keep daggers in and noble's clothes for con artists showed me how to do disguises, showed me how to dress as all sorts of people, and wear the kohl right, and pass for whoever I wanted to pass as.

It was all a game to me. Playing dress-up, like my yadonushi used to.

My father used to beat me if I was lazy or didn't learn right, but he didn't really have to. I admired him. I wanted to be just like him when I grew up, and look after my sisters.

My sisters were mostly in the family business too. Not necessarily tomb robbing, but some sort of illegal activity. They are…. sort of a blur. Come on, I was five! I just have an impression of being picked up off the ground and shook until combs and jewelry dropped out. A bunch of loud, ticked off blurs. My mother was my father's second wife. He was getting rather old, and had really wanted a son.

I was a spoiled brat, I see that now.

Anyway… I keep getting distracted, don't I? I used to relive this scene over and over in my dreams. It's odd how it's difficult to think of it. I think about it, about my desire for revenge. But even though the details are engraved in my memory, I don't think about them.

My mother ran out, I guess to warn the village. My father grabbed me. I was asking what he was doing, I didn't understand. He just yelled at me to shut up. It scared me.

He put me in a chest in the cellar. He told me not to move or make a sound, and then he cast a spell that made me invisible. I hadn't even known that was possible. I stayed silent, because I had been told to, and looked wonderingly at myself, like a child with a new toy.

Very like. I was wondering what I could do with this. I wanted to talk to daddy about all the cool ideas I had, but he had shut the lid and gone.

I stayed there. It was cool, and I was sleepy… I'd been up before dawn helping mother. I guess I fell asleep, because the next thing I knew… there was screaming.

I woke up and wanted to call for daddy, because I was scared, but I remembered the beating I'd get if I disobeyed. I shivered, but stayed silent. It was just the guards being killed, right?

Then I heard steps coming down into the cellar. It was too many, too heavy to be my family. I could sense shadow magic, stronger than I'd ever felt. My dad was the strongest in the village, but this wasn't him.

They threw open all the chests, stabbed into the beer jars, spilled out the grain, but the soldiers didn't see me. I stayed very still, like daddy had said. I may have whimpered, but they were making too much noise to hear.

A woman came down to see if they had found anything. She looked around, and saw me. She ordered the soldiers to move on, search the next house. She came over to me. I… I've never been so scared in my life. The screaming was still going on, and there was sobbing, and strong magic. So strong. Something was happening.

She looked at me pityingly. She looked at me for a long time, with expressions warring in her eyes. She was almost dead inside. She'd seen too much, done too much. She was killing her soul… but she was still doing it. Resolve, and she lifted her hand, and I was elsewhere.

I came to in an oasis outside of town. I didn't understand what was going on. Why had she…

I drank some water, I was thirsty, having been in that chest so long. And I went back to town that evening, when the sun was down.

And what I saw determined the rest of my life. Lives.

Blood.

Blood everywhere. But where were all the bodies? Where was daddy, and mother, and my sisters and aunt and uncle and the old men who told me stories and the knife maker who let me watch and the ladies who didn't wear a lot of clothing?

I went to the center of town, where there was an old buried temple. And in it was… a mold? A human-like shape, with pits for things to go in. Sparkles of gold in the pits. And… magic. But wrong. Not shadow magic. Black magic. I didn't know that then, but I figured it out.

Then… I was just confused. Where was everyone? I wandered through town the rest of the night, looking for someone, anyone.

When dawn came I curled up in the wreckage of my father's bed. And there I was when my cousin, returning from a robbery in the city, found me.

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Like? I had to do explanations for why: A. he knew magic, and B. he survived. I mean, a little kid?

This is all planned out, going to be seven chappies. I know I was only going to do three stories at once, but I was bored!


	2. Thy

Disclaimer: If I owned Yu-gi-oh, Atemu wouldn't have gotten killed because of something he didn't have the slightest clue about.

I'm sorry I haven't updated: I was on Catalina for a week without a computer. Sorry!

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No matter how hard we tried to deny it...

No matter how many prison guards my brother bribed, no matter how many rumors he chased down, they were gone without trace.

I didn't even have bodies to put through the funeral rites! Of course, my father didn't believe in such things, but...

It wouldn't have mattered. Eventually we admitted to ourselves that they were dead. My cousin took me in, and I lived and worked as a pickpocket in the capital. Until one day I saw _her_.

You remember her, right? The lady who sent me to the oasis?

Here she was, riding in a procession as High Priestess of Isis, her clothes as gaudy as they had been plain on _that _day. With a golden torc around her neck. Containing magic as black as night, as black as I had sensed in my village when I returned.

Containing souls. Souls that cried out to me.

I froze, which was a very bad thing to do with my hand in someone's pocket. After I managed to escape the resultant cries of "Stop, thief!" I ran to my cousin.

He, not being a mage, didn't have the slightest clue what to make of it.

I did. The people of my village, my parents, hadn't been executed. They'd been sacrificed. The nobles of Pharaoh's court were wielding power bought with the pain and suffering of my loved ones.

I couldn't take it. I vowed revenge.

I began to sneak into the palace. Hiding in the rafters, I saw demonstrations of the power of the talismans. There were seven, wielded by the Pharaoh and the six high priests.

I also snuck into the beginning Duelist Mage training sessions. I was going to need to learn how to fight.

I also explored the rest of the palace, in order to discover my enemy's weaknesses. The pharaoh had a son.

A cute little baby boy, who had been born after the massacre. I'd made out like a bandit during the festivities.

One day, while there was no one in the room, I jumped down from the ceiling and walked right up to him. I don't remember what I said, but it was something like this.

"Would you mourn him as much as I mourn my parents? You shouldn't. He's a murderer. A mass murderer. My people had blood on their hands, but never cold blood. To callously murder a hundred people... how low is that? Tell me!"

And my hand reached out and grabbed him around the neck. I was lost to rage. I would have snapped his neck then and there.

But he gurgled and cooed like it was the best joke in the world and looked up at me with stunning purple eyes and he was only a baby, barely one year old and I was only six. Or maybe seven. And I couldn't write, so how would the pharaoh know why his son had died?

I wanted him to know that his family died for his crimes. Not like me, who hadn't truly known the people he cared about were dead until he felt their ghosts.

So I left, like a ghost, and I robbed two houses on my way home, and beat up the owners.

I wanted to take my revenge on the lady first. She shouldn't have left me alive. But she died a week later, before I was strong enough to dare it.

At the funeral, I heard rumors of how a lot of the high priests had died lately, oddly. Doing spells that should have been easy. Their own magic had turned against them, but why?

The only ones left of the first ones to receive the new miraculous talismans of power, the Millennium Items, were the Pharaoh and his brother Akunadin. Did their descent from the gods protect them?

The nobles thought it was revenge by the people who had been defeated by the talismans in the recent war, but I knew what it was. My family was taking revenge for me!

It made me... happy, but angry. Happy, that they were still... alive, enough to do such a thing, but angry, because I'd wanted to kill them!

I vowed to get their successors, once I was strong enough. Everyone who benefited from my family's deaths should pay!

I kept sneaking into the palace. I kept training, out in the desert, in the tomb my father prepared. I kept observing a young boy.

If his father died, he was the one I was going to fight. My father was fighting his father, so I would fight the son.

Growing up carefree and innocent. Studious. Obeying his father, looking up to a murderer with hero-worship in his eyes. Vowing to be a good pharaoh with a sacrifice of his own blood to Isis and Osiris in private, sneaking out at night.

I'd seen that the wielders of my family's bodies were invincible. Seeing the future, the enemy's mind... no one but another wielder could beat them.

But this boy could. When he was ten and I was fifteen, he was beating all of the high priests at least one out of two. Even Akunadin. That seemed to enrage the man.

The next best trainee, a brown haired boy around my age, wasn't doing half as well. It enraged him, that he couldn't even beat them once and this boy could. He dedicated himself to learning the boy's secret, to beating him someday.

He couldn't even beat the boy once! How pitiful was that!

I sometimes had to keep from laughing at the expression on the boy's face.

That Atemu kid, he was almost as good as I was going to be.

But I was still going to kick his ass! If I couldn't take him skill on skill, I was going to entrap him. Leave him no way out.

One day, I decided I'd learned enough. I had skill. What I needed was a name. I wanted to strike fear into the hearts of my enemies.

I left my uncle, and took up tomb raiding on my own.

I would make my father proud.

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Get it? I'm doing each chapter with the theme of the word it's titled with.

Deny: Denial over Kuru Eruna

Thy: Atemu

Father: Tomb-robbing and revenge: fulfilling his father's wishes

And: surviving after death, the Millennium Ring

Refuse: Ryou fighting him

Thy: Yami and Yugi

Name: Atemu getting his name back, the Ancient Egypt Arc

Fatalisis: Thanks! But I'm going to do seven chappies. They will get longer.

Silvershadowfire: I also wanted to do what happened to the origional priests, the ones who helped Akunadin. There were all these new people!

Sylvia Viridian: Yes, I feel so bad for him.


	3. Father

Disclaimer: If I owned Yu-gi-oh, ... actually, if Kuru Eruna hadn't happened there would be no story. Selfish of me.

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They used the 'Millennium Items' to cast spells to guard Akunamukanon's tomb.

My family, forced to defend their murderer.

I simply could not get in any of the entrances. A holy barrier prevented me.

But I succeeded. My father had told me of a legendary spell to walk through solid objects.

I went back to the palace. The library, to be specific. And I ran into the one who was now my nemesis.

I was cloaked as a priest of Thoth, who keep their identities secret and communicate only using the holy writing of their god.

I dropped the books I carried when I saw Him.

He looked older than I. His eyes...

He hadn't slept in ages, I could tell. And he was so thin... I dropped my books in shock when I ran into him around a corner. He helped me pick them up and smiled.

He didn't speak, for if one is addressed by the Pharaoh one has to respond, and for a Priest of Thoth to do so would have broken his vows.

The smile was so fake... and the instant he turned away his eyes went dead again.

The brat mourned his father.

Who mourned my family, my father? None but me and my cousin, who had gotten himself caught while I was out in the desert.

They cut off his hands, the traditional punishment for repeated theft. He starved to death soon after. He was already dead: they had taken his Ka.

But that murderer had offerings galore to his spirit by a grateful kingdom and a loving son.

I went into the tomb after the last offerings had been completed on the day I finally mastered the spell.

I needed everything my father had taught me to survive the traps.

I grabbed the mummy and some jewelry and got the hell out of there.

It took me several weeks before I was recovered enough to go to the palace again.

This time I did not go in secret. I had spent _years_ planning this. I wanted this boy-king to know the name of his nemesis: to know why he was being destroyed.

I broke in right in the middle of open court. Now, the pharaoh was the one being accused of a crime. The irony was delicious.

I had expected anger at a commoner daring to challenge him. At the desecration of the tomb of a 'god.' I had expected denial of my accusations, attempting to hide the truth from his subjects as his father had.

Once he knew whose body I carried, he didn't hear a word I said. The priests fought, cursed my name, damned me for a liar and desecrator.

He just sat there, his eyes... dead to the world.

And then he stood up.

Through the middle of the battle of our monsters he walked unseeing, ignoring the cries of the priests. If one of the priests' monsters hadn't defended him, my Diabound would have killed him.

Which would have ended the game too quickly, I thought.

He walked right up to me, his eyes looking right through me. And he pushed me aside, his eyes never focusing on me.

I was so shocked; I just let him walk right by me. To his father's remains.

He hugged the mummy to his chest and... I have never seen sorrow like that, and I hope I never will again.

He picked up the mummy and walked right back to his throne. He didn't push me this time. I stayed out of the way.

Once again, he walked untouched through the battle.

He laid the mummy on the throne and turned around. And there, there was the hate and anger I had wanted. _Here_ was my enemy.

An enemy who could command the gods.

How was that possible, I raged as I escaped. Why had a god come to the defense of one who wielded darkest magic bought by murder?

But it would not keep me from my revenge. My hate grew and made Diabound stronger.

The priest of Anubis, guardian of the tombs, tried to face me on his own ground. But it was mine as well. He died by his own trap. And so I gained the ring.

I broke into the palace, and spoke to Akunadin, the last of the original priests of the Items. The last of my family's murderers. I let him live, to anticipate how painfully I would kill him.

As I left, the Pharaoh pursued, with the god Osiris. But I had a plan.

The fool would not risk his capital.

So Osiris took each of Diabound's blasts so they would not strike the buildings, the Pharaoh feeling each blow himself.

He kept doing so even when he should have realized it was bad tactics. Was he... he couldn't have been trying to protect innocents.

And so I weakened him, and took the puzzle. I dumped him down a cliff, to die slowly. But he survived. And I was glad.

He came again, to face me one-on-one again. Fool, playing the hero. I deserved that title, or so I believed.

But the priests came, and I killed several and took their items. For the place of the final battle was Kuru Eruna itself, and I planned to place the items in the tablet they were formed in, and use that power to restore the bodies of my family.

Their spirits fought with me, protected me. And yet...

Still I lost. Diabound was destroyed. The creature that delivered the fatal blow at the Pharaoh's command was the Ka of the Priest of the Ring, which now contained his Ba as well.

My eternal enemy had defeated me. How...

In denial, I placed the Millennium Items I had gathered in the tablet, hoping I could still cast the spell.

And then I died. Or... at least I think I did. I felt...

Ripped in two, my shadows made undiluted by light.

And I knew no more.

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Thanks to reviewers!


	4. And

Disclaimer: If I owned Yu-gi-oh, we would see more of the history of the ring!

Re. Item names: Rod sounds wrong: I saw Scepter used in Coalescence, which is a kick-ass YY/S, so I'm using it. And 'Tauk' is a nonsense word, but Torque is a piece of ceremonial/magical neck-jewelry. Usually Celtic, but whatever. I think that's what they're trying to say. Complaints?

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The first time I woke up, I didn't know what the hell was going on. I was just suddenly in some guy's head. They're calling them 'soul rooms,' or at least that's what the Pharaoh and his little pet call them when I've listened in.

Anyway, the guy got in a poor excuse for a fighting stance and said something along the lines of, "Get out of my head, you demon!"

At which point I swatted him with some shadow energy. Frankly, they don't make mortals like they used to. The pharaoh had managed to take about a thousand times that amount and still fight. The idiot keeled over. At which point I was stuck in the ring again. This time, I stayed awake. It was boring as hell. I resolved to, if I ever ended up in that situation again, to ask some questions before attacking, instead of after subduing the guy.

I hadn't meant for him to die! It was just that he was attacking me, or it looked like it, and I had no idea what was going on. The last thing I remembered, if you recall, was being torn from my body. And then I ended up in some really weird place that just didn't feel like the normal world...

And so, the next time I found myself in a weird place, I just pinned the guy to a wall with a dagger and kindly asked him what the hell was going on. He blubbered something about how some mystic guy that he had sought out had offered him a talisman of magical power that would be his if he could subdue it.

Then he decided I was some sort of genie or something and ordered me to 'unhand him!' So I knocked a few of his teeth out until he got the picture. I left him in no condition to move and explored a bit.

When I went out of the room I went down a corridor and found myself in a body. Man, the bastard was fat. It was weird being that out of shape.

I looked down and saw the Ring, well, my Ring now. And I could sense that my soul was tied to it. And then I looked around at where I was. It was obviously a rich lazy bastard's house, some things never change, and I've robbed enough of them to tell, but the style and everything was completely different from anything I had ever seen. And I knew foreign stuff, I'd robbed enough caravans.

So I was wondering, what the hell? And it suddenly came to me how to use the ring and go inside his mind again and probe his memories. And...

I'd figured it had been a while, it felt like I had been trapped in there forever, but Egypt a colony of some guys from the peninsula!

I sort of laughed at the thought of the Pharaoh's murdering line being overthrown, but what about my revenge?!

After going into a rampage and smashing some stuff, and scaring the hell out of the little servant girl who came to find out what was wrong, I came up with a plan.

Since the Ring was still around, obviously the others were too. They're a set, you have to destroy them all to free the souls trapped inside. And now that I had joined them in their imprisonment, I could feel them much stronger than before. It might have been a touching reunion, but they were... not individuals anymore, not really human. They were sort of a... I think they call it a 'mass mind' nowadays. And not one that really thought like a human. I could tell it/they sort of felt benevolent towards me, but not really enough to communicate or anything. Sort of like a pet, like that cute little chibi the Pharaoh has.

Anyways, I was going to need a better body if I was going to get the rest of the Millennium Items and free them. And power would be nice. I didn't want to be a ruler though, that would have taken up too much time. So I looked around in my stolen memories for a rich officer.

And so I paid him a visit, and gave him a 'gift.' The Ring. And, as I had surmised, I soon was in his mind. He tried to fight me, but I subdued him easily enough. Then I let my previous host take control back, and proceeded to kill him so he wouldn't blabber to any priests.

Modern priests are rather useless, but I was used to the Egyptian ones, who could kick ass. I could probably beat them, no one but the Pharaoh had ever been a challenge even before I had a Millennium Item, but I didn't need the hassle.

I'd thought I was fine as long as I didn't kill the body I was in. Well, I was wrong.

Over the next few bodies I discovered that:

A. apparently some secret society of guys in turbans kept handing out and collecting my Ring

B. I was fine as long as I didn't kill the guy who woke me up

C. the Ring could home in on Millennium Items, but I only managed to ever get the Eye, 'cause

D. I had no idea where the heck the Puzzle, Torque and Scepter were, and the guys in turbans kept the Key and Scales, and every time I tried to ambush whoever had them, or go where they were keeping them, I woke up in the ring.

I eventually got the message not to try. I got the sense that... the Millennium Items were waiting for something.

So I settled down to wait too, although it was as annoying as hell.

Occasionally I'd just kill the idiot stupid enough to try to use MY FAMILY as a power source. The one before Ryou, I stuck the pointy things into and set him on fire from the inside.

Ryou...

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AN:

I hate people who 'lose their inspiration.'

Joey has the most tragic situation on the show besides Ba-khu-ra.

Look at the end of Ch. 2 for a story outline.


	5. Refuse

Disclaimer: If I owned Yu-gi-oh, Ryou would get to kick ass.

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Ryou.

I still don't understand the brat. He's the first one who didn't get my Ring from a weird guy in a turban; he got it from his father. Poor consolation prize for ignoring the boy after his mother and sister had died.

I hid my presence from him when I awoke. I don't know why I did that. Curiosity, perhaps?

He didn't have anyone to blame. It was a senseless accident. A snowstorm, a bridge... no one to live for, since his father had abandoned him. Why did he go on?

I always measured strength by rage. My rage had given me the strength to fight, had allowed Diabound to defeat the High Priests' prize creatures, even a God.

He wasn't angry. Not even at the universe, or his father. Both of which deserved it. He refused to be.

He saw that rage would make no difference.

A quiet boy, often ignored. I always had families, cronies: I chose to fight alone, to avoid harm to them.

Monster World. It fascinated me.

Fighting evil, monsters, as a game.

Combat, hardship so removed from real life that an approximation of it was sought after. He longed for adventure. But instead of playing the hero, he allowed others to be.

Being the Dark Master, devising devilish scenarios for their entertainment, was the coin with which he bought companionship.

When what he wanted was to once, just once, be the one to save innocents. To save his family, to win his father's approval.

The ones who used him angered me. I...

He is a weakling. He didn't fight back, stand up for himself. But... even I had been a child once. So I gave him what he wanted.

I made it so they would never leave him again. Would stay in the world they had used their false friendship to have him devise. They had never allowed the little half-breed to pretend to be other than a mediocrity.

The figurine for the White Wizard, the Defender, the Healer, he wished to be collected dust.

Until I played the Dark Master. I, who had been the hero. Or so I had thought.

For some reason, he could not hear me when I wished to tell him what I had done. I had always been able to speak to my hosts before, when I had cared to. What was different about Ryou? Why was part of his name so like my own?

When all his friends fell into comas after playing with him, and he alone awoke with no knowledge of what had happened, he was abandoned.

For once, he did something. He moved.

He found a new gang of players. And the White Mage moved up levels, and he was happy. Until they found out that he had been a Dark Master. And were too lazy to create their own scenarios when they could have the new guy, the one too polite to object, do it and have more fun using their characters to kill monsters.

And so I punished them again.

And he moved again. And in this new school, I found what had escaped my searching these past three thousand years.

The Millennium Puzzle. Hanging around the neck of a boy the spitting image of the Pharaoh.

But it was not him. No, this boy was kind, and innocent, and reached out to Ryou as a friend. He and his friends wanted to play Monster World with him. They had heard of the game, or at least one had. They wanted to play with him not to play for their own amusement, but to be friends with him. But he remembered what I had done.

And then he spotted the Puzzle, and asked about it. He was about to tell them about the Ring, but I stopped him.

He was hauled off by girls, and a teacher told him to get a haircut. I smiled. Some fun before the main event.

He was in pain. I laughed.

He heard me.

The boy with the puzzle and his friends approached him after school to talk about playing.

Ryou wanted to play. He wanted friends. But he told them what had happened before, and refused.

He went home, and wrote his stupid letter to his sister. And I laughed at him again. And he heard me again.

And I told him who I was. And what I had done to his stupid friends.

He told me to get out of his body. His last words, after I hinted that I was going to punish the stupid teacher who had cursed at him, was "Don't...!"

The next day, he stayed home. He tried to take off the Millennium Ring. But I had dug its spikes into his chest. He tried to break the figurines that held his 'friends.' But I told him that would kill them.

And then the doorbell rang. And it was that innocent Pharaoh-look-alike and his gang. Friendly people. I meant to let them live on in the game world forever, even the image of my enemy. I had seen before. Ryou looked like me.

What was going on?

Ryou, kind, sweet, forgiving Ryou, couldn't be me. This child, this innocent, bright heart, couldn't be the Pharaoh. _I _was me! The Pharaoh gained his power from ancient murder!

Ryou told them to go away. Or tried. But I took over. He fought me.

He fought me while I welcomed them in, designed the characters they would spend eternity as (I had made the figurines last night, by magic) set up the scenario on the computer.

He fought me all game. And so I lost. To my ancient enemy. Yugi was not the Pharaoh, as Ryou was not me.

The Pharaoh was the Pharaoh. He had gained life eternal, a parasite in the bodies of my family.

No!!!!!!

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Joey has it much worse than Kaiba. Kaiba got to keep Mokuba, and he is rich. Joey has no money, no grades, a police record, no future. Except possibly tournament dueling, but given what Kaiba set his stats as, no luck getting invited to the big pot ones. Everyone else's troubles are in their past. Joey's may prevent him from having a future.


	6. Thy

Disclaimer: If I owned Yu-gi-oh, Bakura wouldn't have been absorbed by Zork, or whatever.

Love/Hate/Jealousy is FUN!

Second-to-last chappie! Yay! Hopefully I'll do the smart thing and not start another fic, reducing my fanfiction commitment to only 5,000 words a week plus responses.

But I'm writing three one-shots for two Y/Y yahoo groups (look on my profile) this weekend/next week on top of my regular four story updates, so I probably won't do the smart thing.

Joining the groups doesn't cost any money, and you aren't obligated to do anything whatsoever. They're fun, you sometimes get to read stuff you can't find on other sites (P's H has an exclusive Lizeth (the _History of Magic_ goddess) fanfiction, as well as an exclusive by little old me) or read stuff early. And there are interesting discussions. They also have contests you can enter, and challenges. Join!

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You.

Again.

What the HELL?!

And what is up with the chibi? He's a midget version of you!

At least Ryou is a half-decent height. Of course, you always add on half a foot. WHY don't people notice?

Of course, they're too busy watching you kick ass with their mouths hanging open. You ARE good.

You DID kill me.

I won against you once. Why can't I ever do it again?

Ryou is some weird version of me. I figured that out eventually. And Yugi is the same to you.

Game. Hah. Whoever named him must have had the Millennium Torque.

He's your game, and you play him well. He looks up at you with such trust. You come running when he calls. What do you see in him?

It was _fun_ when he rejected you, after you were willing to let that fool Kaiba jump. On the ground crying, talking about how he would never duel again.

But you could never resist a challenge. You always would come chasing after me on your own. And so he dueled. And let you take over, use him.

I skipped your glorious victory against Pegasus. Didn't want to see you win. Again. But he was a fool. He could never beat_ you_.

It was foolish to tip my hand by challenging you a second time. But I think you knew I was still around anyway. Whenever I looked through my host's eyes, I saw a shimmer of ruby.

Or am I imagining things?

_His_ eyes are purple. He's weak, like Ryou. You coddle him. I at least try to introduce my yadonushi to the facts of life.

He said once you call him Aibou. Him, a worthy partner for you?

Never.

When he almost died during the Monster World game, when he attacked and was shocked during our duel at Duelist Kingdom...

Why do you care about him? Weakling.

Little one you call him. Little. Not a worthy host. I can't believe he's connected to you.

Why the hell did I challenge you at Battle City? There wasn't anything in it for me. I could have taken the Scepter anytime I wanted. Malik was such a baka.

I did it for kicks. To beat you again, and have you know you were beaten fair and square, because I was better than you.

That's why I took over when I could have won. I want a true victory. Not out of any care for my host, although it would be a pain if he died now, when I've finally found you.

I wouldn't have another chance to beat you.

To grind you down into the dust, to kill you and with your power and death, the Pharaoh's power, a god's death, restore my people to life and lick your blood off the knife.

I'll kill you slowly and drink in your screams.

I think I'll kill your little pet in front of you first.

Of course, I was watching in the shadow realm when you thought he was dead during the battle with that idiot, Pegsy-boy.

Trying to take MY Ring. Trying to use my family for his own purposes. I made him _hurt_.

I thought you would rejoice, use your true powers without having to worry about that weakling breaking the Puzzle.

You actually care about him.

How odd.

I'll kill him _slowly_.

I've seen you in spirit form, watching out of the corner's eyes. How you sit down on the floor beside him at school, leaning your head against his legs. How you suddenly smirk and lean up and play with his yellow bangs, so limp and listless compared to your own, and make a comment that has him choking down laughter, and, when he's recovered, gazing at you accusingly as you laugh and laugh and kiss him on the forehead.

And he smiles that wide sweet innocent smile and looks at you with eyes full of worship.

At one whose reign enslaved the slaughtered.

Have you taken him, broken him, made him scream? You know you want to. Perhaps you did, and wiped his memory.

For one of your sins, to be around unviolated innocence must burn.

I never enjoyed the suffering of others. Except those who profited by my family's murders.

Of course, to be fair, you weren't a sadist. I studied you, I would have known. Profited from murder, but never bloodied your hands.

No, you wouldn't ever taint him. I've seen you look at him and look away before he can notice what is in your eyes.

Bastard.

No, you are your father's son.

Damn you.

Literally. I will send you to hell. Better. To the Shadow Realm with you, for the rest of eternity.

That Ki-sama, Malik. Smashing the Puzzle and destroying you... how can I hurt you if you sleep as I did?

How can I get my revenge when my DAMN enemies keep dying on me?

Curse your father, not me. If I'd been able to kill him, you would not have suffered.

What happened, that you were sealed in the Puzzle?

My family wished to preserve my spirit, I know that now. Did they resurrect you so I could kill you?

But why now?

It's been three thousand years. Egypt, the world they knew, is dead and dust.

How will we live?

Well, that's why I stole. A nest egg.

Useless, now.

Everything was useless.

Oh well.

I didn't have to fight you. The whole thing, all my hate, just a HUGE misunderstanding.

If I started laughing, I wouldn't be able to stop.

You didn't know. It wasn't even your father that did it. HE didn't even know until right before he died.

I didn't have to fight you. I didn't have to die. You didn't have to die.

Gods damn Akunadin, wherever he is.

You'd probably forgive him. You've forgiven me. You looked back at where I stand, and you're not running through that door to the afterlife.

You're waiting. For me. Offering me a chance to gain the heaven I don't deserve.

Damn you. Damn you.

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Yeah... Joey has options NOW. And Seto's case isn't as hopeless as you think. Watch the Doom Arc. Battle City REALLY helped him. And he's smart and he hates being weak, and being emotionally weak is something he is going to work on. I think he'll make it.

Frankly, this chapter is the first one I like. I wanted to do a character analysis of Atemu, Yami, and Yugi (all three versions of the Pharaoh) from Bakura's perspective, but I ended up doing a biography. Damn.

Notice one-sided B/YY and Y/Y with Yami not doing anything about it. Resolved in next chapter.


	7. Name

Disclaimer: If I owned Yu-gi-oh, Bakura would have been happy as well at the end. I feel so sad for him!

This fic changed a lot between conception and finished version. Why it is very stupid for me to plan things in advance. It pisses off the characters.

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I found out in the end. When I was possessed, enslaved. Used to destroy you by the demon who brought his way into our world with my family's suffering, at Akunadin's hands.

The demon you bound. The demon my family kept you around to get their revenge on.

How strange, how much my spirit raged in its prison.

I never had to hate you. For all I spoke of blood on your hands, dishonor on your name, you were clean.

I wanted, when I aided you in getting the items, for you to recover your memories. There would have been no point in killing you if you didn't even know why, thought yourself an innocent victim, thought me the villain of the piece.

But I was.

Me, named for the god of the sun by day. You for the sun at night. How strange, that you should be the true light, holding Horakti, the destroyer of Zork, within your pure spirit.

All the power I earned by my hate could not fight your divine innocence.

I was used to fight your little one, and damn me, but I didn't know what to do. Duelist's honor, which I do possess fought with denial and contempt and the desire not to be like Akunadin, not to kill an innocent. Not to kill again the innocent damaged by my revenge.

You.

And then I died again, and again, and again, and again. And Zork died with me. And I was free.

You got your name. The power of a god, the power of justice, was yours, not mine. And you deserve it.

But why did you not destroy me when I was weakened? Why did you hold my anchor, the ring, so carefully?

Did you know? Did you always know?

God damn you. Why don't you hate me?

You're finally free. You lost to your successor, the little one, who I have to say is more worthy than I. The gate is open, your soul is released, as is mine, by the Items.

And yet you turned around, almost through the door that opened to your name. You look to where I stand. And you beckon me on, into the heaven that only you deserve.

You died because of me. I tried to destroy all you held dear. The Items, my family, imprisoned you. Yet you forgive us all, invite us with you.

God damn you. But wait, you are a god. Named for what you are.

Only a god could be this forgiving.

I'm tempted to stay here, an angry lost ghost, my soul lost forever. But I can't turn you down. I owe you too much.

First you get my revenge for me. Now you forgive me and my family for all we've done to you.

God damn you.

And so I walk up to you, as you stand on that dais. Feel my body restored by the light, as those fools run to escape the collapsing chamber.

And I take the hand you reach out to me. And know I don't deserve this.

And you pull me through.

And behind us I can feel the Items destroy themselves, and my family and friends, my people are all around me, laughing and crying and finally free and in the heaven that they denied themselves, criminals that they were.

But you don't care, as you stand and smile as they prostrate themselves before you, and you lift them up, so they stand as the equals they are not.

What are we scum, next to a god? How could I have dared...

And as I bow to thank you, inadequate as that might be, for all you have done, you shush me, and smile, and shrug to say it didn't matter.

And I guess it didn't. They're here. We're free. My mother and sisters and the priests I killed.

I didn't fail.

They are saved. But by you. And god damn me, but I can't hate you for it.

And all around us there is rejoicing and your father is hugging you, and the priests are bowing, except for the tall one who is just smirking happily, and the girl with the Dark Magician Girl's spirit just glomped you.

But you smile is only on the surface. True, you are happy all of us are happy, but you aren't happy to be here.

You opened that gate to bring all of us home, didn't you?

You didn't want your name. Didn't want to put your little one in danger regaining your past. Didn't want to leave him, as you knew you must if you regained yourself.

You would have been perfectly happy to be with him, you beloved sweet self, forever. But you left.

You left so you would not cease to guide and begin to smother, be a crutch to a well man instead of an lifesaver to a sickly one.

You left your light, your heaven to bring all of us to ours.

God damn you.

You died before, to imprison the evil I unknowingly unleashed. And now you have died again, helping me, your worst enemy.

And as I stand on the edge of the party in the heavenly palace, you look over at me. And you smile sadly.

You forgive me for what you have done for me. In you view, there is nothing to forgive.

Justice in the name of god, you said. And this is your justice, in your name.

I can't forgive you. This is not justice, I say now as I said then. This is not what I wanted.

But... it is, isn't it. Everything I wanted. My family free and happy and safe, my enemy suffering... everything. Everything.

And suddenly I burst out laughing and can't, can't stop, even my father slaps me lightly and tells me to be a man.

Everything.

The infinite mercy of god.

Damn you.

Bless you.

Bless your holy name.

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Whew. Glad that's over. And I narrowly avoided making it at all AU. Go me.

Am tempted to do these little bio/introspection pieces for other characters. Joey, Seto, Mokuba, Tea... no inspiration yet, though. And not going to start one until Endless is finished. As I write this, I just had a great idea for a theme for a Mai one. D'oh. Free plotbunny?

Yu-gi-oh has so many wonderful characters. Even Weevil is a great character.

Yup, Ba-khu-ra get screwed over. And, no, I'm actually an English major, and the one philosophy class I took didn't go into anything like this. I just was born with the ability to get into character's heads, to understand what is going on with them.

Which occasionally means I have to leave during movies because I literally can't stand it anymore. I kinda have autism, Asperger's Syndrome, which means there are some things I just can't handle. Think mental allergy. More exposureworse, not less sensitive. Oh well. I rock, anyways.


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